


Sand Falling

by Dumbothepatronus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Death, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bullying, Character Death, Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hogwarts Sixth Year, One-Shot, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Pansy Parkinson, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Past Tense, Poisoning, Present Tense, Short Story, Slytherin, Teenage Drama, The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Tragedy, Tragic Romance, hourglass - Freeform, romance with a tragic ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dumbothepatronus/pseuds/Dumbothepatronus
Summary: She knows why she did it.What she doesn't understand is why it was there.Pansy Parkinson watches as the hourglass empties, grain by ugly grain of sand falling into the bottom well as she chokes on her own throat in Draco Malfoy’s stone-cold bed.Draco/Pansy, tragic ending.





	Sand Falling

She knows why she did it. 

What she doesn't understand is why it was there. 

Pansy Parkinson watches as the hourglass empties, grain by ugly grain of sand falling into the bottom well as she chokes on her own throat in Draco Malfoy’s stone-cold bed.

She claws at her burning stomach; her tears mark paths through her rouge, and she wonders if he will arrive—if he will charge through the door and slam it against the wall; if he will rush to her side and brush the sweat from her brow, the hair from her forehead; if he will trip over the bottle of mead she dropped on the floor—before the final drop of sand falls.

Pansy Parkinson’s sixth year of Hogwarts was off to a mostly fantastic start. The ceiling of the Great Hall shone bright and cloudless on September the 12th, and she was exactly where she wanted to be: in Draco Malfoy’s lap, hand-feeding him from a bowl of grapes she had strategically placed in front of them.

“I’ve heard Slughorn has an eye for who is going to be really important after Hogwarts.” She pressed another grape against the pale pink of Draco’s lips until it disappeared with a satisfying pop. “Bet he’s begging you to join his club by the end of the month.”

She felt Draco’s smirk right down to her bones. It had been surprisingly easy, winning Slytherin’s biggest trophy. The other girls were so stupid, trying to win him with beauty charms and poise. The only way to Draco’s heart was through his ego. 

Draco’s eyes moved heavenward—and away from her—as the soft beat of a hundred wings swept through the hall. Oh, joy—time for the morning annoyance. A familiar, immaculately-groomed owl landed gracefully above her abandoned breakfast plate, a lavender parchment tied to his outstretched leg.

Pansy grimaced. Letters from her mother almost never held anything she wanted to read. 

She snatched the note from the owl and shooed it away. Might as well get it over with. 

She quickly regretted that decision. The words your unfortunate face, no offense, darling and really have to work on your figure stared up at her, stabbing her with their vitriol. The letter shook in her fingers before she scrunched it up and shoved it into her robes. 

It didn’t matter what her mother thought; she had already won. So what if her nose was a little too wide, or if her measurements didn’t fit the perfect “hourglass” standard? Wasn’t she balanced on the thighs of the most desirable pure-blood any witch could ever hope for?

Yet, as she moved through the halls, she couldn’t shake the feeling of longing for her mother’s approval. What she needed was a promise. How could her mother ever deny her success, with a Malfoy ring on her finger?

On their way to Potions that day, they passed Neville Longbottom in the hallway; his eyes were red and puffy. Excellent. 

“Have you been crying, widdle baby? Why don’t you go home to your Granny?” Pansy smirked as Neville’s face fell. She might have a flat chest and a thick waist, but at least she had proper control over her own emotions. Crying was for first-years and Muggles. 

She glanced at Draco’s face, hoping to find approval, but was instead greeted by a vacant expression and far-away eyes. She bit the inside of her cheek. Who was he thinking about? Astoria with her elegant, intricate bun? Did Draco like intricate buns? A narrow waist and rounded hips? Had he stared at her retreating form for a second too long after breakfast this morning?

Pansy ran her fingers through her own hair, tousling it upwards and back behind her head to add a wave of volume. Her mother always said it was too thin. Maybe it was time to up her game.

Pansy scowled into the biting wind of the November air as she trudged across the grounds, back towards the castle gate. Winter was never kind to her. The frigid air made her face break out in uneven splotches and her eyes turn beady—as if she needed an extra dose of ugly.

She’d been looking for Draco, but now that winter had ruined her complexion for the next half hour, she half-hoped she wouldn’t find him quite yet.

Still, she continued her search for her wayward boyfriend up the stairs to the second floor, letting the warmer indoor air even out her tone as she went. He’d been awfully mopey this week, ever since the invitations to Slughorn’s third Slug Club meeting had gone around. Tonight was the party, and he was surely drowning his sorrows at his missed invitation. If she could only figure out where, she could swoop in and save him from his misery with some well-placed compliments.

By the time she had walked up and down every hallway in Hogwarts, her hands were warm and her eyes were clear. The steps down to the Slytherin dorms stood before her, steep and familiar. If he wasn’t roaming the castle, he must have gone back to his room.

Tap-tap-tap. “Draco? Are you in there?” 

A shot of magic swung the door open, and Pansy stepped through into the darkness. 

Draco’s bed was the furthest from the door. Maybe the reason he moved from the first bed, the position of power he’d always occupied in years past, was to secure himself the privacy of being tucked into the corner. 

She slinked between the back wall and the side of his four-poster, past the shelves he had filled with comforts from home: a silver dragon statue the size of a Kneazle, a series of books on famous pure-blooded wizards throughout history, and an ornate automatic hourglass, which flipped itself over each time the final grain of sand dropped. As she settled onto his comforter, it stared at her, half-filled—sand trickling through the tiny opening into the space below.

She looked away from the reminder of her inadequacies and into Draco’s silver eyes. She recoiled in surprise, for the whites were tinged pink.

“Have you been crying?”

Draco turned away, casting his eyes to the palms of his hands. “No, Pansy, I have not been crying. I have been working on my Potions essay. You’re welcome to proofread if you’d like to make yourself useful.”

Pansy held out her hand and Draco filled it with a tight roll of parchment. She unrolled it to find uniform lines of tidy script. “Oh Draco, your handwriting is so beautiful. I wish I could write as well as you.” 

Draco’s smile did not reach his eyes; it was empty and exhausted as he rolled back to rest his head on the pillow. Pansy placed his essay on the shelf and stretched out next to him, running her fingers through his cornsilk hair until his breathing grew even and measured.

Even in sleep, the space between his eyebrows remained wrinkled. She pressed her finger into it, but it wouldn't smooth; it was permanently etched with the stress he’d been wearing on his face all year—in the shadows of his eyes, on the apex of his forehead.

She pressed a tender kiss there before sliding off the bed and back to her room. Draco had been so secretive lately. What burden was he carrying, that carved itself onto his skin? She couldn't stand to see him marred with purple moons and wrinkled cracks. 

Tonight, the night of Slughorn’s Christmas party, which once again neither of them were invited to, Pansy wasn’t sure where to find him.

Every morning at the breakfast table, the shadows below his eyes shone a shade darker than the day before, and the crease between his eyebrows folded deeper. She worried it would never disappear; that one day, when the war was over and Voldemort had saved them from the imminent decay of their traditional values, she would stand in front of Merlin and wizarding kind and vow herself to him, but his battle scars would remain.

She’d spent so much time over the last few weeks chasing Draco Malfoy through the halls of this school. Tonight, she was tired. Tonight, she was going to let him come to her. 

The Slytherin common was eerily quiet. A handful of prim and proper witches whispered to each other over blue and white china teacups, bathed in the sickly greens of the sun setting through the Black Lake. She slumped through the room on the way to his dorm, but straightened her shoulders as she pressed the door open on the off chance that he was exactly where she hoped. But as she pulled back the curtains of his four-poster, she found it empty.

It was a shame, really. She could use his distant yet appreciative gaze upon her tonight. It was always easier to act like nothing was wrong when she had an audience. Now there was nothing to do but re-read the letter that had flown in with this morning’s post.

Are you quite certain you are holding the attention of the Malfoy boy? While it would be an impressive match, I have it on good authority that he prefers more… traditionally proportioned witches. I’ve enclosed a handbook on how you might be able to remedy that. Watch out for the Greengrass girls—I’ve heard whispers.

She’d show her mother; she’d come home for summer holidays with his ring on her finger. What would be left to say of her disappointing appearance if she achieved the most coveted engagement a witch could hope for?

She could do it. As long as Astoria Greengrass didn’t get in her way. 

Pansy bit her lip. Where was Draco? The last of the light streaming through the window had melted into black, and still, no shadow darkened the door frame. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Astoria in the common room earlier. Were they holed up together somewhere?

She needed a drink.

Luckily, Draco kept a secret stash in a hole in the wall just above the hourglass on his bookcase, behind a portrait of a wizard battling a centaur. 

She leaned up to whisper in the wizard’s ear. “Rooster feathers.” 

The portrait creaked open to reveal thirteen bottles—a witches’ dozen. They winked at her as she ran her fingers over stout red, muddy brown, and slender blue flasks, finally stopping on one of beveled green. 

“There you are. I’ve been dying to try you.” Even if it was just to punish Draco in some petty way for not being with her tonight where he belonged.

She’d seen the bottle in his cache months ago, but Draco had never allowed her to try it. Whenever she pointed it out, he bore an expression of such profound shame that she dropped it. He must have nicked it from his father’s private stores and was now too guilty to partake.

Well, that was a dilemma she could rescue him from. He’d probably be relieved to discover the decision had been made, though he would never admit it. 

The mead had a delicious oaky aroma that wafted through the cold of the room when she popped the cork. Perfect. 

With a swing of her elbow, she lifted the bottle and took a long swallow.

Draco thinks she’s sleeping when he stumbles through the door of his dorm. She’s uncharacteristically curled atop his bedspread, her knees tucked under her chin. With all the anxious clutter in his mind tonight, he’s relieved to see her there. 

She always manages to cheer him up with her dark humor and open adoration.   
Scarlet torchlight dances across the walls, casting shadows that haunt the recesses of her eyes. She looks exactly how he feels.

He doesn’t want to wake her, so he doesn’t cast lumos. But as lowers himself onto the bed next to her, he notices smudges of black running from the corners of her eyes all the way down to her chin, and he frowns.

“Have you been crying, Pansy?”

Despite the evidence of her sorrow, her face is dry to the touch. It sits like stone under his fingers. The smell of alcohol drenches the air.

“Pansy? Get started on my liquor collection without me?” He shakes her shoulder, but she doesn’t rouse.

His eyes roam the otherwise empty dorm, and he wonders when the rest of his roommates will return from the quiet party they’ve been holding in the common room. 

That’s when he spies it. 

The bottle of poisoned mead that he’d commanded Rosmerta to surrender back to him when he’d lost his nerve after the failure of the opal necklace. 

It lies on its side, dead on the floor, its contents pooling like blood at his bedside. 

Panic and despair fill his heart as he snatches the bottle and hurls it at the wall. It knocks his hourglass to the floor on its journey, and they both shatter.


End file.
